Filing for the West Virginia Senate special election closed late Friday afternoon, setting the stage for a crowded 11-candidate GOP primary on August 28 even as Democrats have largely rallied behind Gov. Joe Manchin.

Manchin announced Tuesday that he would indeed to run to succeed longtime Democratic Sen. Robert C. Byrd, who died last month. The governor appointed his former general counsel Carte Goodwin to serve as the interim senator, and the 36-year-old Goodwin was sworn in on Tuesday.

While the popular two-term governor is the prohibitive favorite to win his party’s nomination and is the frontrunner in the general election, he won’t be alone on the Democratic ballot.

Ken Hechler, a former West Virginia Secretary of State and U.S. Congressman, filed on Wednesday for a spot on the ballot. Though he’s held office off and on since 1959, he’s now 95 — three years older than Byrd was at his death. Hechler said he joined the race to raise awareness of moutaintop removal, a form of surface mining he’s been vocal in opposing.

Republicans missed out on their top choice to challenge Manchin when Rep. Shelley Moore Capito passed Wednesday on a Senate bid despite a provision the Republicans in state legislature inserted in the special election bill that would have allowed her to simultaneously run in the special election and for reelection to her House seat.

Mining company owner John Raese, who spent millions of his personal wealth running for Senate in 1984 and 2006, was the only well-known Republican to file for the seat. He faced off against Byrd four years ago, getting 34 percent of the vote to the veteran Democrat’s 64 percent.

Still, Raese may not get Captio’s blessing for his run. A source close to the congresswoman said she would likely not endorse Raese because she believes he would not want her support due to some “animosity that exists” on his end. Raese lost the primary for governor to Capito’s father, former Gov. Arch Moore, in 1988.

Raese didn’t seem surprised that he might not get Capito’s backing, telling West Virginia MetroNews, a radio company he owns, Thursday morning that: “I think we’re different kinds of Republicans.”

However, he also said he would welcome Capito’s support and “it would be extremely beneficial” to his campaign.

Mac Warner, who lost the GOP primary in the 1st congressional district earlier this year, also filed for the seat. Warner’s brother, Monty Warner, was the GOP nominee 2004 and lost badly to Manchin.

The special election provision that allows a candidate to run in both the special and general elections on Nov. 2 might not completely to waste. Just an hour before the deadline, Jesse Johnson, who was already running for a seat in the state legislature as a candidate of the Mountain Party, an affiliate of the Green Party that is West Virginia’s only recognized third-party, filed papers for a senate run.

Johnson made two previous bids for governor, taking only low single digit support in 2004 and 2008 against Manchin, and also running under the party’s platform for Senate in 2006 against Byrd. An actor and producer, he also tried to win the Green Party’s nomination for president in 2008, but finished fifth in the balloting.

Clark Barnes, a GOP state senator and the minority whip, originally planned to run for the seat but decided against it after seeing so many Republicans file. But even with the crowded field, Barnes agreed Raese was likely the frontrunner.

“I’m not really interested in putting my name in and taking on seven, eight, nine Republicans,” Barnes told POLITICO.